The Midwife's One-Night Fling
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‘Are your parents back home?’
‘And my brothers.’ Freya nodded.
‘Do you all get on?’ he asked, because despite himself he wanted to know more. Surely there must be more of a reason she had left—not just in her work, but her home, friends and family too?
‘Oh, yes. I’ve got my own place, but I see plenty of them. The older brother, though they’re both younger than me, has got two children. I delivered the younger one.’
‘I can’t imagine having a sister-in-law, let alone being that close to her.’
‘Don’t you have siblings?’ Freya asked.
‘No, there’s just me.’
‘And are you from London?’
‘Kent.’
‘Do you get back there much?’
‘Now and then,’ Richard said, and then he hesitated.
He rarely spoke about his family, but he felt no sense of her probing beyond what he was comfortable with, and actually he found it was nice to sit and chat.
‘I see my father sometimes, and my mother’s here in London. She’s just got engaged.’ He rolled his eyes, just as their meals were delivered. ‘Again.’
Then came the pepper grinder, and the parmesan cheese, and he thought certainly they would speak about the food now, or the film they were about to see—or even, as Richard usually would, get on with flirting. And yet he was still curious to hear more about her.
‘Do you miss your old job?’
‘Yes and no,’ Freya said. ‘I was often delivering the babies of people I’d been to school with, or their wives. And I know a lot of people around town. And while it’s nice knowing your patients...’
He nodded. ‘My father’s a GP. I know only too well the downside. He was never off duty—even going out for a meal like this he’d be interrupted. The only time I remember him getting away from work was if we went on holiday, and even then patients would call him for advice.’
‘I don’t mind that so much,’ Freya admitted.
Her dismissal of the intrusion aspect of things surprised him.
‘It’s more the fact of everyone knowing everyone else’s business,’ she explained. ‘And of course when a pregnancy goes wrong it’s much harder.’
‘It’s just part of the job,’ Richard said.
‘Yes, but it’s more difficult when you know the patient.’
‘Perhaps...’
To Freya, he didn’t sound as if he necessarily agreed. ‘There’s no perhaps about it.’
He opened his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind. It had been a very long day, and they were here to relax after all.
Still, there was something he really would like to know. ‘Was there a break-up involved?’ he asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Is that the reason you left—is there an ex-Mr Freya back home...’
‘No!’ She laughed. ‘I’ve never been married, but I did break up with someone earlier in the year. It really didn’t have anything to do with my decision to leave, though.’
‘Are you sure?’ Richard frowned through disbelieving eyes.
She was very guarded and, although they were chatting easily, he sensed she was being prudent in her responses.
For once he wanted to dig for the truth from a woman.
‘Well, it might have had some influence on it,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘There’s nothing much worse than going into a pub or a restaurant and knowing there’s a pretty good chance that your ex will be there. It was a bit messy, I guess.’
‘Who ended it?’
‘Me,’ Freya said. ‘We’d been together for ages and I just...’ She didn’t want to talk about Alison’s baby and the pregnancy that had gone wrong. But it had been that which had heralded the end for her and Malcolm. ‘I was going through a bit of a tough time and he didn’t help matters...’ She gave a thin smile. ‘And so, before even the very curl of his hair started to irk me, I ended it. I guess he wasn’t the love of my life.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ Richard declared. ‘Work is the only love of my life and I intend to remain faithful to that.’
‘How do you do it?’ Freya asked. ‘I know how wrung out I feel after an emergency, and yet you deal with them each day.’
‘It’s my oxygen,’ Richard said. ‘There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Although,’ he admitted, ‘I don’t want to end up like my father. There has to be a balance. I go away a lot on my days off —try to get well away from the hospital.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘I have some choices that need to be made.’
‘Such as...?’
He gave a small shake of his head that told her not to go there. And when she didn’t push for more information Richard could have reached over and kissed her there and then.
He didn’t, of course, but the thought was there as their eyes locked.
Freya felt the heat spread over her cheeks as their eyes held, and yet she did not tear her gaze away.
God, he was good, Freya thought, for he turned her on without so much as a touch.
And despite her insistence that tonight was about nothing more than seeing a film, she was now heeding Stella’s warnings.
It had been lust at first sight, she knew.
And she would not be acting on it.
Freya wasn’t like that. One boyfriend at the end of school and throughout her nursing training. A gap of two years and then Malcolm.
A fling with a sexy anaesthetist was so not something Freya would do. And it would be a fling, for he’d warned her—was warning her right now—that everything she’d heard about him was true.
So she reached for her water and tried to think of something to say as she peeled her mind away from sex.
Because that was all it would be.
Sex.
Ah, but it would be sex with him.
‘So your mother’s engaged?’ Freya asked. ‘Again?’
He knew she was changing the subject.
Although they were speaking about his family, their minds had just been on sex. He wanted to feel her hair...he wanted to delve into those mixed message eyes.
She almost scalded him with a look, and behind the walls she’d put up there lurked desire.
And he liked her odd sullen moments, interspersed by the brightness of her smile.
But, no, this was not what she needed.
He might have a well-deserved reputation, but he wasn’t an utter bastard.
Freya was by her own admission a little lonely, a touch overwhelmed, and he would not be meddling with that pretty head.
So, back to her question. He had to think for a moment what it was. Ah, yes, the many loves of his mother’s life.
‘My mother is about to enter into her fourth marriage. My father isn’t quite so bad. He’s only been married and divorced twice. I doubt he’ll be taking that step again.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Thank God! It really is hard coming up with a new speech each time.’
‘Her fourth!’
He nodded. ‘She left us when I was fifteen, and I’m now thirty-three, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.’ He saw her wide eyes. ‘Well, maybe it is. My mother is high-end drama and she just wasn’t cut out to be the wife of a country GP. She loathed it. And since she broke up with my father—’
He went quiet, for the first time since they had met. And then...
‘Freya?’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve missed the film.’
‘Oh!’
She looked around the restaurant and noticed the other diners were thinning out, and then she glanced at her phone. It was coming up for eleven.
‘Do you want dessert or coffee?’ he offered.
‘No, no...’ She shook her head.
He walked her to the Underground station and there, she assumed, they would go their separate ways.
‘I’ll see you home,’ he said, when she told him where it was.
‘It’s only four stops,’ Freya protested—but not too much. She still wasn’t quite used to the Tube, and she did feel a bit nervous at night. It would be nice to have company.
Or rather it would be nice to have his company.
‘We’re here,’ Freya said as they arrived at her flat.
‘Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your film.’
Freya wasn’t sorry.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, toying with whether or not to ask him in and deciding that it would be foolish at best. There was a kiss in the air—she could feel it—and as she looked up at him she wondered how that gorgeous unshaven jaw would feel pressed hard against hers.
‘Well, another time, then,’ Richard said, resisting the urge to kiss her against the wall.
She wanted a friend, he reminded himself. No more than that.
‘Thanks for a nice night. It was good to...’ She gave a shrug. ‘Well, it was nice not to be talking about babies.’
‘All work and no play?’ Richard said.
‘Something like that.’
She took out her key and he watched as she put it into the lock. That was the difference with Freya—she didn’t stand there awaiting his kiss. She didn’t seem to want the complication of them either.
And yet there was want.
It was a sultry summer night that deserved to end in bed, but Richard was behaving himself.
‘Night, Freya.’
‘Night, Richard.’
She walked inside, closed the door behind her and leant against it, taking a long breath in.
Had there been a double-lock she would have turned it. Instead she made do with the security chain.
But only to keep herself in.
There was a kiss waiting on the other side of that door—she was sure of it.
And not just a kiss.
Who was she kidding?
It hadn’t been a kiss in the air out there—it had been sex.
But a fling with Richard Lewis would be foolish at best. Freya didn’t do that type of thing. And it would be a fling—she knew that. He’d as good as told her so himself.
She told herself that she could never regret a sensible decision. That in the morning she would wake up and be delighted that she’d avoided the awkwardness that would have surely followed.
Except in the morning Freya didn’t feel delighted.
She only felt regret.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘HOW WAS THE FILM?’ Stella asked as Freya walked with her from the changing room.
‘Great,’ Freya answered. ‘It’s well worth seeing.’
She was saved from further questioning as the overhead chimes went off, summoning the Trauma Team to Casualty.
She certainly wasn’t about to tell Stella that they’d never actually made it to the cinema, as she knew Stella would just read more into it than there had been.
It was unusually quiet, so Freya took the lull in proceedings as a chance to check stock. She had just pulled out the suction catheters and was ticking the order form when the overhead chimes went off again.
They were a common occurrence in a busy hospital such as this, but the summons that came was one that Freya hadn’t yet heard.
‘Obstetrics Squad to Casualty.’
Freya wasn’t a part of the Obstetrics Squad. She had been told about it during her interview, though. Each Maternity shift, a senior midwife carried a pager and would attend to any obstetric emergency elsewhere in the hospital, along with an obstetrician and anaesthetist.
New staff had to attend at least three off-unit emergencies as an observer, and then Dr Mina had to approve them before they were made a part of that team. But just because she wasn’t part of the team it didn’t mean that there was nothing for Freya to do.
She ran down to the equipment room and opened up the door, and was pulling out the emergency trolley as Stella and Kelly came running from opposite directions.
‘Dr Mina’s already down there,’ Stella informed Kelly, who held the pager for the Obstetrics Squad today. ‘Freya, go and observe.’
Freya nodded. She was nervous about this role, yet keen for the experience.
The chimes were pinging again.
‘Here...’
It was Len the porter, who had caught up and took over the other side of the trolley, allowing Kelly to run on ahead.
There was everything that might be required, including a neonatal cot, even though there would be one in Emergency. The trolley was set up for any eventuality.
As she swept into Casualty, Freya acknowledged that she was nervous but consoled herself that she was just there to observe. Even if she never made the team it would be good experience for when she went back to Cromayr Bay.
When.
There was no time to dwell on that word, though it jolted her.
Richard was at the head of one of the resuscitation beds and only briefly glanced up when she came in.
‘Next bed,’ he said, clearly knowing that she wouldn’t have been down there before. He gestured with his head to a curtained area beside him, from behind which came the sound of equipment and people, and above all that the screams of a woman.
They were terrified screams and the woman sounded in pain.
‘Thanks.’ Freya stepped in and saw there was organised chaos taking place.
Dominic, his registrar, was at the head of the bed and the trauma team were around the woman. So too was Dr Mina, tiny in green scrubs and yet authoritative all the same.
She had a Doppler on the woman’s stomach and there was the sound of a rapid heartbeat.
‘Stay back and observe,’ Kelly said. ‘You’ll be doing this yourself soon.’
There wasn’t actually room for her to do anything but observe.
An older woman dressed in scrubs was talking to the patient. ‘You’re okay, Louise,’ she said in an Irish brogue. ‘We’re taking care of you now...’
Louise had on a hard collar, and from what Freya could make out she had been involved in a high-impact motor vehicle accident. There was blunt trauma to her chest and abdomen as well as a head injury.
And she was twenty-six weeks pregnant.
‘Louise.’ Kelly moved near the head of the bed. ‘Your baby has a strong heartbeat...’
But nothing would calm the woman. Louise Eames was absolutely terrified and perhaps, after her head injury, confused too.
There were also concerns that she had abdominal bleeding.
‘I’m May, the Unit Manager in this madhouse.’ The Irish woman stepped back and spoke to Freya as Kelly took over reassuring the patient. ‘I’m a midwife myself. All looks well but, as you know, pregnant women can mask symptoms. I’m worried that she’s worse than her observations are showing.’
It was nice to be talked through it all. Most of it Freya knew, but she hadn’t actually seen the Obstetrics Squad in action.
‘I’ve told NICU to hold a cot, in case she has to be delivered.’ May said. ‘Here’s Richard now.’
Richard spoke for a moment with Dominic, and then Dominic stepped out—Freya guessed to take over the patient in the next bed.
‘Hello, Louise.’
He spoke as if they had already met, Freya thought. There was just something so reassuring about his voice.
‘I’m Dr Lewis, Consultant Anaesthetist.’
Louise screamed again.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No screaming. Save that oxygen for your baby. Now, I want to have another listen to your chest.’
‘That’s a good girl,’ Kelly said to Louise, who was quietening down—though that wasn’t necessarily a good sign.
‘We’re going to get her round for a CT,’ Dr Mina said. She and Richard discussed sedation, but Louise seemed a lot calmer now.
The CT was swift, and showed a small tear on Louise’s spleen, but everything looked fine with the baby.
‘Louise.’ Dr Mina spoke to her. ‘The hard collar can come off now and you’ll be more comfortable. The baby is doing well, but we’re going to move you now to the Intensive Care Unit, so that we can keep a close eye on both of you.’
‘Will my baby be okay?’ It was all Louise wanted to know.
‘Everything is looking fine for now,’ Dr Mina said. ‘But, Louise, if we need to deliver you, then we will.’
ICU was all ready and waiting, and absolutely the right place for Louise to be.
Freya listened as May gave a detailed hand-over to the Critical Care Nurse. It was scary for Louise to be there, no doubt, but after the noise of Emergency it was certainly a lot calmer here.
‘Thank you,’ Dr Mina said to the midwifery staff as they gathered up their equipment to leave.
Richard didn’t look up as he was already with another patient and completely focussed.
God, what a job he had, Freya thought as they headed out.
‘Poor thing,’ Kelly said, as they made their way back, but then she moved straight on to business. ‘We’ll have to check the trolley as soon as we get back,’ she told Freya. ‘Just in case we’re called again.’
‘I hope we’re not,’ Freya said.
But hope didn’t work.
Just after three the chimes went off again. Freya was taking a baby for Pat when she heard them, and they didn’t even share a glance—instead they focussed on the little life coming into the world.
Working at The Primary was, Freya thought as she came out of the delivery suite, just all so intense.
‘Were the chimes for Louise?’ Freya asked Stella, who was writing up the board against a background of screams from a woman in the bathroom.
‘Yes.’ Stella nodded. ‘Maternal compromise.’
And then there was paperwork—so much paperwork—only today Freya used it as an excuse and a reason for lingering at the nursing station until well after four, when Kelly came back.
She was wearing a pink theatre cap and still somehow brimming with energy as she and Stella commenced restocking the emergency trolley.
‘Mum dropped her blood pressure. Thankfully they were straight onto her. The baby’s out.’
He was doing well for dates, but it was Louise that was the main concern. The small tear on her spleen had extended and, as Dr Mina had explained, the signs of hypovolemia were more subtle in pregnancy.
Freya was utterly exhausted as she made her way home.
‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ said the flower seller, and Freya managed not to shoot him a look.
She stepped into her flat and just flopped onto the couch—lay there staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling, feeling utterly wrung out. Every second at work she felt as if she were on a roller coaster that didn’t allow time for catching her breath, or time to reflect.
Poor Louise... She’d been incredibly well taken care of—Freya knew that—but it was all so different from everything she was used to.
Which was what she had wanted, of course. And she was certainly getting experience. But it was draining her.
Stella had told her there would be a case follow-up for Louise, in which Dr Mina would go into greater detail, and Freya was truly grateful that she’d been sent down to Casualty to observe. She really was gaining experience, and if ever a mother came into Cromayr Bay with blunt force trauma...
Freya halted herself there, but it was too late. She knew in that moment that she was imagining herself back at home, just as she had this morning.
But she wasn’t just here to gain experience. If she’d wanted that, as Richard had pointed out, she could have gained it rather more locally.
No, she had moved to London.
Freya hauled herself to the shower and then, having pulled on a robe, surveyed the contents of her fridge.
There wasn’t much. She had meant to stop and pick up a few things on her way home. Now she had neither the energy nor the enthusiasm to go out again.
A knock on the door had her padding down the hall—she guessed it would be her neighbour, as their post got muddled on occasion.
Instead it was an unexpected sight for sore eyes.
Richard.
He’d had a haircut and was clean-shaven. And he was wearing a suit, but no tie, and he looked incredibly tired but still breathtakingly handsome.
‘What are you doing here?’ Freya asked.
He tried not to notice that she wore only a robe and that her hair was wet as he answered. ‘We have a film to see.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘STELLA ASKED ME earlier if I’d enjoyed it...’ said Richard.
‘She asked me too.’ Freya smiled. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said it was very good, and then I had the awful feeling I was going to be questioned further, but thankfully she had to rush off...’
‘Yes, it’s been one helluva day,’ Freya said. ‘How’s Louise?’
‘Critical.’
‘I’m not a reporter, Richard. You can tell me how she really is.’
‘She’s very unstable. She’s had a splenectomy and a Caesarean and has been given a lot of blood. It’s going to be a very long night for her.’
‘Poor thing.’ She was about to let him in, but then she shook her head. ‘To be honest, I’m not really in the mood to go out.’
‘Fair enough.’ Few women refused him, but he found it was rather refreshing. Richard liked her ways.
‘We’ll do the film another time, maybe?’
‘Sure.’
Freya looked at him. He was a man she could never keep, but that didn’t matter now. For in her heart Freya knew she would be leaving London soon.
‘You can come in,’ Freya said. ‘If you want to.’
And Richard did want to.
He came through the door and Freya could feel his eyes on her bottom as she led him down the hallway.
His eyes were on her bottom—for a moment—but then he looked at the trail of moisture her hair had left on her robe, and then he looked down to her long, bare legs.
He didn’t notice the mustard carpet, nor the curtains hanging too short, he simply noticed her. As he had from the very first day they had met.
They faced each other, and the want that had been there for a long time, certainly on the doorstep last night, seemed to have followed them into her flat.
‘I’ll go and get dressed.’
Please don’t, Richard thought, but didn’t say.
As if she could hear him Freya looked up into his eyes.
‘If you disappear on me, at least I’ll know what to tell the police,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘She was wearing a pale robe...’
‘Oh.’
Freya didn’t really understand, but there was a smoky edge to his voice, and as he further explained their eyes locked.
‘I don’t usually notice what women wear—well, not to the extent that I do with you.’
This morning Freya had regretted her sensible decision last night not to invite him in. Now she wanted to be reckless.
Richard felt as if he could see the barriers between them tumbling down before his eyes. And, yes, desire did reside behind her green gaze.
‘What else was this woman in a pale robe wearing?’ Freya asked. ‘Slippers?’
‘No,’ Richard said, his eyes never leaving hers. For he had already seen her painted toes. ‘Her feet were bare and her hair was damp...’ His hand came up and he picked up a heavy coil of black hair, as he had ached to do from day one. ‘And,’ he added, ‘I’m quite sure she didn’t have any underwear on...’
He watched her mouth part in a smile and lust punched like a fist as they teased and flirted and turned each other on.
‘I wish you hadn’t shaved,’ she whispered as his mouth came to hers.
And then she changed her mind, because instead of rough kisses she got the tang of cologne and Richard’s clean-shaven cheek against hers.
‘Smooth can be good,’ he told her as his hand slid behind her neck.
Her skin flared beneath his fingers and the feel of his cheek had her mouth searching for his.
But then he spoke. ‘Freya...’
She frowned at the slight hesitation in his voice, for it was unfamiliar. He was always, always so confident and direct.
Freya pulled back her head and those gorgeous eyes of his awaited her.
Richard was not one to spoil the moment, but his conscience niggled and he wanted to make things absolutely clear to Freya. People could trust him with their lives, but not with their hearts, and he wanted to be sure she understood that before things went further.
‘Don’t rely on me.’
It was the oddest thing to say, perhaps, and yet the kindest.
‘I get it, Richard.’
He wasn’t going to be the cure for her loneliness. Richard Lewis wasn’t going to be the love of her life.